Starting a Nid army

[Allan Hansen]

Hi...
First time here so bear with me.
I just ordered Death Storm as I am planning to make a Nids army and I already got the Swarm box.
I was hoping for some feedback about which MC to get besides the Tervigon (love that model). I am torn between the Exocrine and the Toxicrene (again great models). So which have the best use as I generally play against Tau, Crons, CSM and Imperial Guard?
And ofc if ppl have other suggestions I am thrilled to read them :)

[Wolfshade]

Hello and weclome aboard!

[Dylan4President]

Apart from the Maleceptor and Haruspex, all the Nids MCs are pretty good. U'll need a few of them in your army as 1 or 2 will quickly be shot down. A Tyrannofex with Acid Spray is a good value line breaker, although Exocrines and Toxicrenes also work well. If you haven't bought your Tervigon yet, there's a good value GW box with one, a Hive Tyrant (a Flying Hive Tyrant with double Devourers is the best MC in the codex)and some other stuff. Oh and when playing with Nids, you need to keep in mind Synapse, so make sure to include some Warriors, Zoanthropes etc. Medium term consider buying some Tyrannocytes. Good luck!

[CrimsonTurkey]

If you take the time to magnetize a Trygon/Mawloc kit you have two very solid choices. I particularly like the Trygon Prime on account of the 12 S6 shots which is great for can opening after a deep strike, but lots of people get great mileage out of the hungry worm too.

[rpricew]

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Wrath-of-the-Hive-Mind

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Tyranid-Swarm

Both of these are good starting points... covers all of your basic troops, gives you a solid HQ choice and is a good value. If you're not sick of painting tons of little gribblies when you're done with these...then you'll be ready to start adding Tyranid Monstrous creatures to the mix.

The Deathstorm box also has a good value, and you may be able to trade away the BA portion of the box set to offset your costs.

Use magnets on all of your Monstrous Creatures so that you can get more mileage out of them. There are tons of tutorials on the web/youtube on how to do it easily.

[Drosseph]

as far as MCs go i can not even begin to describe how much work my exocrine puts in. Ive had it outright kill a necron destroyer lord turn 1 with some lucky shooting. But in general every game i use this unit it def makes up its points cost which is admittedly steep. I would actually recommend that you invest in a minimum of 1 malanthrope, 2 if you play in the 2000 point range. The malanthrope is a must have for any tyranid player as it is an excellent, fluffly, and fun force multiplier. I am a huge nids fan since 3rd edition. Got about 10k points or so of them and am currently running a campaign of nids vs imperium for some friends.

[Allan Hansen]

Hi guys and thanks for the posts :D
I already got a Nid Swarm, a Tervigon and 2 Hive Tyrants (making 1 of them flying MC) and I am considering the Exocrine and Tyrannofex too.
What about Hormagaunts? Are they as bad as I keep reading online? I really like the models and like the idea of a lot of gribblies and some big *** critters to back them up :)

Ohhh forgot I recently got the old swarm box with 3 Carnies in too.

[Brenlak]

I would have to agree Exocrine, this new Warhammer seems to be a shooting mans game, and STR 7, AP2 is boss. To be fair I don't have a Toxicrene but they look cool (well I don't like its head, seems a bit meh compared to the coolness of the rest of the model).

[QUOTE]http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/...-the-Hive-Mind

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Tyranid-Swarm

Both of these are good starting points... covers all of your basic troops, gives you a solid HQ choice and is a good value. If you're not sick of painting tons of little gribblies when you're done with these...then you'll be ready to start adding Tyranid Monstrous creatures to the mix.

The Deathstorm box also has a good value, and you may be able to trade away the BA portion of the box set to offset your costs.[QUOTE]

I usually try not to say much to sell a GW miniature (or a swarm of them) in these types of questions but it sounds like you have enough friends around that play the game to know the Associated cost. rpricew is turtally right; you WANT a Tervigon and you NEED a Hive Tyrant so Wrath of the Hive Mind is kind of a must (plus you get all the Termies to go with the Gon)

I do have to say I am currently not a fan of Tyranid Warriors (I used to be! Fun to paint, pose and equipt) but I find these days a T4 with W3 ends up being finished by a Devistator squad or a Chaos Gunpuppy before they get a chance to do anything.

Were you planning on building your Baal's the way that is in the campaign book or are you just gonna build some nids?

Magnets are sweet!Though I must admit I have only 2 models that are magnetized, a Fex and my walking Tyrant.

[Allan Hansen]

I was thinking about making my entire force around the new Death Storm Campaign :)

[Brenlak]

Cool Beenz, It would be even better if you could find someone to play the Blood Angels, nothing like a good rivalry!

I was just going to paint mine as normal colors for my army(and I probably still will), but I think I'm keeping the Children of Cryptus. My Genestealers are all from the last codex were you had a ton of options for them, but it had to be unit wide, and you only get two of each special head per sprue of stealers so it took 5 boxes before you could get a force of ten specific ones. I look at the Brood papa and all of his unique children and it looks so cool, all that diversity. Seems like it would be a lot of fun to build a unit like that, and fluff wise it would work too. The Children of Cryptus are so successful during the Phodian buffet that there genetic code is retained by the hive mind to be used in future lunch dates.

I don't know how good of a painter you are (Me not so good, but getting better) but I "dipped" my Tyranids, really simple procedure and really good look afterwards.Dipping models you can easily finish a unit of 20 in a days work. There are lots of articles aboot it, I found the one I used on The Tyranid Hive forum (Before being driven away by merciless Bronies...)

[Allan Hansen]

I did make my own colour scheme and my buddy already is building a Blood Angel army, so we went half on the box and I have been on a bit of a shopping spree regarding Nids, so I have loads of models to build my army incl. the old metal Old One Eye :)

EDIT: My Deathstorm just arrived today and I am getting started to paint this weekend. Already have quite of lot of models as I got 2 swarms boxes, 2 Tyrants, 1 Tervigon and a Toxicrene in the mail :)

[Brenlak]

Sounds like you know what you are doing sir! If you are new to 40k though I should warn you of the Buy/Model/Play Matrix...

Buy: Here on the Sunny Beaches of Canada we are a consumer nation, and really the easiest part of this hobby is buying the cool stuff! If your anything like me with limited time to model because of work, family, whatever then often you will find yourself heavy on this side of the Matrix (And that's where GW wants you to be)

Model: I have a house rule. It used to be no unpainted models allowed but some people in my group were all like "That's not fair, bro!" so I scrapped it. All it took was one game against a mob of 60 headless, armless, unpainted Orks "Oh, I paint those parts separate, eh" it turned into All armies have the special rule Preferred Enemy:Unpainted, that quieted the hoopla down. Point is its going to take time if your painting an army, heck I dipped my nids and it still has been 3 years of this paint scheme to get were I am. During those years I have bought another two armies that are still in the boxes untouched!
Point is, depending on your situation or not, you have a lot of models purchased, games workshop isn't going anywhere let them hold on to those models you need to purchase, or else your bedroom may end up looking like this...

12018

Play: I haven't played in a couple months now, it can happen. That's why I said find a buddy who is into it to, it really helped anchor me in the hobby, but it's still tough to play. We can't get through a game round without having to pull the rulebook out, Ha Ha!

[Allan Hansen]

hehe my house looks exactly like that ;) I've got a complete Ultramarine Company and a 11k pts High Elves Army. I just never played with or against Nids :)

[Brenlak]

Nids were the first army I picked up for 40k, used to play fantasy as a kid and I was crazy over Mordheim (Still am to admit it, just wish it was still around).

I just looked at your question and the amount of posts you had and figured you were a greenhorn!

I don't know why I was drawn to the Hive Mind (Besides the models look cool) but my main reason would have to be

A) You guys like swarms of things, right?
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[AdamHarry]

If you take the time to magnetize a Trygon/Mawloc kit you have two very solid choices. I particularly like the Trygon Prime on account of the 12 S6 shots which is great for can opening after a deep strike, but lots of people get great mileage out of the hungry worm too.


Bio-electric Pulse with containment spines is 12 shots at S5. It's still a lot of shots and it's good. it's just not that good.

I would strongly advise getting a spore pod or two (or three!) to go with your army. They work with so many units in the nid book and they just add a lot of flexibility to whatever you want to bring.

[Allan Hansen]

I already ordered a spore pod :) I was thinking about using it to drop a Carnifex behind enemy lines to make my opponent focus his fire on that. Just make it a regular Screamer Killer :)

UPDATE: My spore pod and my Tyrannofex/Tervigon arrived today... I really like the Tyrannofex model too... does anyone have any advice about it? :)

[Brenlak]

I made mine into a Tervrigon so for you I have no advice, well if you do make a Tervrigon make sure you have some gaunts to go with her.

I missed out on Leviathan so I have no idea what a spore pod even does. I should learn so I can stop being upset it wasn't in the codex and be happy its back!

And as for the Fex Bomb I tend to be a bit defensive and could never spend the points to sacrifice a model this way (I don't even know how much a spore pod is though), but if you could use it in combination with a Trygon (or even a Mawloc?), now your cooking with Bacon!(Bacon must always be capitalized)

[Allan Hansen]

I have now slowly begun to paint, but the flu caught up to me, so it's going slowly but steadily

[Lord Ezekial]

I don't play Nids but my brother does and I find that venomthropes ( the ones that give cover saves) are a pain because his hordes of little ones get a decent save even with the AP of my bolsters. Also winged hive tyrants can be a pain to fight against. Just a few thoughts!

[Andrew Thomas]

Void Shield Generator/Network. For the cost of a Tyrannocyte with upgraded guns, you have a 12" radius bubble that's immune to anything under strength 6. And for multiples of 10 points extra, you can get yards of 4+ cover. Also, Tyrannocytes and/or Sporocysts, because properly equipped and positioned, you can ruin a lot of horde Infantry's day.

UPDATE: Here's a basic list I'm starting to build.

1250 Trolltastic Tyranids
HQ 275
Hive Tyrant 165
WS 8 BS 4 S 6 T 6 W 4 0000 I 5 A 4 Ld 10 Sv 3+
Electroshock Grubs 10
R template S 5 AP 5 Assault 1, Haywire
Miasma Cannon 25
Spit R 36” S 1 AP 4 Assault 1, Blast, Poisoned 2+
Spray R template S 1 AP 4 Assault 1, Poisoned 2+
Lashwhip &Bonesword 20 Toxin Sacs 10 Adrenal Glands 15
R – S 6 AP 2 Melee, Life Drain, Poisoned 4+, Swift Strike
Regeneration 30
Troops 45
Mucolid Spore 15
WS - BS - S 1 T 3 W 3 000 I 3 A - Ld 3 Sv -
Massive Floating Bomb R – S 8 AP 3 Melee, Large Blast
Mucolid Spore 15
WS - BS - S 1 T 3 W 3 000 I 3 A - Ld 3 Sv -
Massive Floating Bomb R – S 8 AP 3 Melee, Large Blast
Mucolid Spore 15
WS - BS - S 1 T 3 W 3 000 I 3 A - Ld 3 Sv -
Massive Floating Bomb R – S 8 AP 3 Melee, Large Blast
Heavy Support 480
Tyrranofex 175
WS 3 BS 3 S 6 T 6 W 6 000000 I 2 A 3 Ld 8 Sv 2+
Electroshock Grubs 10 Adrenal Glands 15 Toxin Sacs 10
R template S 5 AP 5 Assault 1, Haywire
Rupture Cannon 30
R 48” S 10 AP 4 Assault 2
Stinger Salvo
R 18” S 5 AP 4 Assault 4
R – S 6 AP 2 Melee
Tyrranofex 175
WS 3 BS 3 S 6 T 6 W 6 000000 I 2 A 3 Ld 8 Sv 2+
Electroshock Grubs 10 Adrenal Glands 15 Toxin Sacs 10
R template S 5 AP 5 Assault 1, Haywire
Rupture Cannon 30
R 48” S 10 AP 4 Assault 2
Stinger Salvo
R 18” S 5 AP 4 Assault 4
R – S 6 AP 2 Melee
Fortifications 420
Void Shield Network
3 Void Shield Generators 150 6 Additional Void Shields 150
BS – Av 13 HP 3 000 000 000
2 Promethium Relay Pipes 80
6 Barricade Sections 60

This list brings 80 linear inches of 4+ cover, 9 AV 12 Hull Points of shielding, and a 20" buffer zone that Vehicles and Light Infantry just won't enter. Roll Catalyst and you are pretty much unassailable. If you add a Hive Crone, Sporocyst and more Spores and Barricade Sections, you can get up to 15 feet of cover and more than enough firepower in a tourney list. Just some thoughts.

[Allan Hansen]

that is 1 sick list :D

[Andrew Thomas]

3-0 so far. Serpent Spam was the only list to get remotely close to killing the list, while Crimson Slaughter Possessed and Guard running Melta Vets in a Stormlord got rofl stomped down to an Obliterator Squad. Waiting to see if Flying Circus, Deathwing, or Land Speeder Spam stand a chance. Also haven't tried an Unbound list against it yet.

EDIT: 4-0, with the caveat that these were all Purge the Alien matches, and were I playing an objectives based scenario, my Dark Angels/Raven Guard Land Speeder list in the 4th game (Sableclaw Sammy, Grav pistol & Maul SM Cap, 2 almost full RWASs, w/3 meltaguns, an AC/MM Land Speeder & no Attack Bike each, an LS Storm w/ AC, Scout Sarge 2-fistng Grav Pistols, and an AC Darkshoud) would've won by sudden death. Closing with the generators is probably the biggest weakness of this list

[Andrew Thomas]

4-1. Insanity Wolf cares not for Void Shield Shenanigans.

4-2: Flying Circus just ate it.